For many healthcare organizations, marketing still sits on the wrong side of the ledger. It’s viewed as an expense – something to trim when margins tighten. Yet, hospitals and health systems that treat marketing as a strategic investment consistently outperform their peers in terms of growth, reputation, and patient acquisition.
The difference lies not in the size of their marketing budgets, but in how marketing leaders demonstrate value. When you connect your work directly to measurable business outcomes – using metrics executives understand – you help the C-suite and board see marketing as a growth engine, not a line item.
The following are lessons Springboard has learned working closely with health systems leaders:
1. Lead with Business Outcomes, Not Marketing Activities
As How to Pitch Your Marketing Plan emphasizes, the surest way to gain credibility with the C-suite is to align with their business goals: revenue growth, quality improvement, cost control, and risk reduction.
That means moving beyond reports filled with marketing activity metrics like impressions, clicks, or social engagement – and instead leading with outcomes that connect to strategic priorities:
- How marketing drove more referrals and appointments in high-value service lines.
- How digital engagement contributed to incremental revenue and margin growth.
- How sustained outreach strengthened market share and reputation in your competitive marketplace.
When you start with results that matter to executives, reposition marketing instantly shifts from expense to investment.
2. Measure ROI Through Broader, More Strategic Metrics
Marketing ROI in healthcare can’t be captured by counting form fills or appointment requests alone. Executives care about long-term contribution, not just short-term conversions.
To prove real return on investment, look to broader performance indicators such as:
- Views of service line web pages (beyond campaign landing pages): Evidence of increased consumer interest and sustained engagement with your brand.
- Physician profile views: Demonstrates consumer intent and trust in your providers.
- Shifts in total referrals and calls: Indicates that marketing is influencing both patients and referring physicians.
- Growth in total appointments and procedures: A clear measure of demand generation and access improvement.
- Incremental service line contribution: Quantifies how marketing efforts translate into financial gain for the service line.
- Market share shifts: The ultimate proof point that marketing supports organizational growth.
When you connect these metrics to business outcomes, such as margin improvement, service line expansion, or competitive advantage, you demonstrate that marketing is fueling the same growth levers that leadership tracks in every other department.
3. Translate Metrics into Executive Language
Executives don’t want to know how many impressions you generated – they want to know what changed because of your work. The most effective marketing leaders turn data into a strategic story.
For example:
“Following our cardiology awareness campaign, profile views of cardiologists rose 40%, while total procedure volumes increased 12%. That translated into an incremental $1.2M in contribution margin.”
This kind of framing connects the dots between marketing activity, behavioral change, and financial impact – helping executives see marketing as an engine that creates measurable value.
4. Build Trust Through Transparency and Predictability
Investment-minded leaders don’t just want to know what worked; they want confidence that results can be repeated and scaled.
Establish clear, consistent frameworks for how you track, attribute, and report results. Be transparent about what marketing can control (brand awareness, engagement, conversion) based on previous campaigns and what depends on operational alignment (access, scheduling, clinical capacity).
When executives see that marketing operates with discipline and accountability, they begin to view it not as discretionary spending, but as a strategic investment portfolio that can be optimized for growth.
5. Elevate Marketing’s Role as a Growth Partner
The most progressive health systems have already made the mindset shift: marketing isn’t about promotion – it’s about driving growth.
That means marketing leaders are using data to guide investment decisions across the enterprise:
- Identifying which service lines have untapped consumer demand.
- Mapping where referral leakage or access barriers are limiting growth.
- Uncovering new patient segments and geographies for expansion.
When marketing brings forward insights that inform strategy, the C-suite begins to see it as a driver of enterprise growth, on par with finance, operations, and clinical innovation.
6. Present Like an Investor
When it’s time to present results, use the same framework that finance uses for investment analysis.
Lead with three questions:
- What did we invest? (Budget, channels, audiences)
- What did we yield? (Incremental appointments, contribution, market share)
- What’s our growth potential? (Opportunities for scaling success)
This investor’s lens reframes marketing from “spending money to get attention” to “deploying capital to generate return.”
The more consistently you communicate in this language, the faster marketing will be seen as a performance asset – one that drives predictable, measurable value.
The Bottom Line is the Bottom Line
Healthcare executives are seeking new levers for sustainable growth. Reposition marketing as a investment can be one of the most powerful of those levers – if it’s measured and communicated the right way.
When marketing leaders connect their work to outcomes like incremental contribution, referral growth, and market share gains, they do more than justify their budgets. They build confidence that every dollar spent on marketing is an investment in the organization’s future.
If you’re ready to shift marketing from a cost to help manage capital at work…
Let’s talk.
To set up a time to discuss your brand’s strategic opportunities, please contact me at mike@springboardbrand.com